After Saints Preserve Us, She Returns The Favor

By JANON FISHER

Published: August 1, 2005

George Ferrandi has seen saints at their worst -- stained by lipstick, burned, cracked and faded -- and with skilled hands and the tools of her trade, she skillfully restores them. She gives them a makeover and has built a career out of it.

Ms. Ferrandi (who goes by George even though her name is Georgina) combined the knowledge from her graduate degree in sculpture with her experience in her father's church restoration business to found her own company that fixes religious statuary, primarily Roman Catholic figures.

When St. Francis needs retouching or there is a crack in the Madonna, Ms. Ferrandi, 38, is the one who gets the call.

Her phone rang again recently after a 25-year-old man who the police said had a history of mental illness attacked a granite statue of St. Anne, the mother of Mary, outside a Roman Catholic church in Queens Village with a sword and a shotgun, decapitating the sculpture. Two police officers responding to emergency calls were shot and wounded by the man outside SS. Joachim and Anne Roman Catholic Church.

After the strange episode, the church contacted a Brooklyn religious goods merchant seeking advice about what to do about the damaged statue. The merchant knew just whom to recommend -- Ms. Ferrandi's company, Saints Alive!.

Growing up in Baltimore, Ms. Ferrandi would often help out in her father's church restoration business, cleaning statues and painting. She studied sculpture as an undergraduate and, after getting a graduate degree in sculpture from Ohio State University, she taught at the University of Florida. But as an artist she knew the place to be was New York City. So she moved to an apartment in Williamsburg one day before Sept. 11, 2001.

Afterward, she said, ''I guess I did what everybody else did for the next two weeks -- stared at the TV and had nightmares.''

A few weeks later, moved by the city's resilience, she decided to make a contribution in her own way.

''I just wanted to do work that was meaningful and the zeitgeist at the time was rebuilding,'' Ms Ferrandi said. ''I recalled the work that I had done with my family, repainting Jesus's toenails, and thought that's what I should do.''

She opened up a Brooklyn phone book to the section on religious goods and called the listing with the biggest ad -- Chiarelli's Religious Goods, a religious supply company that goes back three generations.

Uncertain of her technical proficiency, Ms. Ferrandi called the owner, John Chiarelli, and offered to repair any broken statues. ''I figured if they were broken and he couldn't sell them, I could use them for practice,'' she said.

It was a modest start to what has become a steady stream of work.

Last year she repaired 43 statues for churches in the New York metropolitan area. She does most of the work herself, but occasionally hires other artists she knows in Williamsburg to help her with airbrushing or to fill in any gaps in her expertise.

One of Ms. Ferrandi's projects last year was repairing five statues of the Madonna that were damaged in a fire in the Buoncammino Park chapel in North Bergen, N.J.

She was able to finish the work in time for one of the statues to be used in a festival run by the Society of Maria Santissima Del Buoncammino Di Altamuro.

''It looks brand-new,'' said the president of the society, John Mustaro, 58. ''Some people, especially the women, were in tears when they saw it. She does fantastic work because she cares, that's why. To me she gave me the impression that she was operating on a human being.''

Ms. Ferrandi says by the time she gets her hands on a statue, there are often obvious signs of wear and tear. ''I see a lot of Band-Aids and surgical tape, which is always very touching, but not very effective,'' she said. Replacing worn fingers and cleaning lipstick from a statue's feet are also not uncommon.

One pastor, in an effort to deter his congregation from kissing a statue's feet, asked her to mix an abrasive substance with the paint so that it would be rough to the touch.

Did it work? ''Of course not,'' she said.

The price for Ms. Ferrandi's work varies widely. Finger repairs can cost $50, while a complete restoration can be $9,000.

Reattaching the head of the statue of St. Anne will be her most complicated and extensive repair project so far. It will also be the most expensive, though she declined to provide a price tag.

The 100-year-old statue, which depicts St. Anne standing with Mary as a child, first needs to be cleaned. The head will have to be replaced or fixed after Ms. Ferrandi determines if the face, which is pockmarked by buckshot, is beyond repair. The right shoulder also has significant damage and will have to be reinforced with pins and resculpted. And she has to sculpt a new left hand to replace the one that was shot off. Ms. Ferrandi has told the church that she will be able to finish the work by the end of September.

On a humid Tuesday night last week the largely Haitian congregation of SS. Joachim and Anne Parish gathered to celebrate the feast of St. Anne. Singing in Creole, those who took part in a candlelight procession wound around the headless statue down Hollis Avenue.

After the service, one of the parishioners, Adina Auglade, 45, explained why it was important to repair the statue. ''We don't pray to the statue,'' she said. ''We pray to the mother of Mary. We pray to the spirit, but we pray before the statue because it gives us a face to pray to.''

Photo: George Ferrandi works on the head of a statue of St. Anne. The statue, from SS. Joachim and Anne Roman Catholic Church in Queens Village, was decapitated and shot in an attack last month. (Photo by Angel Franco/The New York Times)